


Afterwards

by linguamortua



Series: The Life and Times of Dr Bruce Banner [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Bruce & Hulk Interaction, Bruce Banner Feels, Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-18 10:42:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3566735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linguamortua/pseuds/linguamortua
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People imagine that Bruce Banner can change seamlessly between his regular body and the Hulk. They're wrong; it always hurts, afterwards.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Afterwards

**Author's Note:**

> You can add me [on Tumblr](http://lingua-mortua.tumblr.com/).

The carnage in the city street is devastating, a high cost in both lives and buildings. Concrete, shattered glass, crushed cars, wood splinters and limp bodies lie scattered, flung to the ground by explosions or bullets or huge green fists. As the last of the dust settles and the ambulance sirens begin their intrusive wail in the distance, the Hulk’s vast form starts to change. First, his shoulders narrow, his tree trunk legs shorten and slim and his giant bulk recedes. Slowly, like treacle down the side of its jar, his proportions become more recognizable, muscles deflating and facial features shrinking into finer definition. Within a handful of minutes the ambulances are screeching in and like ink rinsed with water the rich green of his skin is fading to an unhealthily pale white. Panting, shivering as his sweat dries in the light autumn breeze, Bruce Banner crouches naked on the rubble where once, minutes before, the Hulk had stood. He is huddled in on himself, dirty, smeared with green blood and the detritus of urban battle. As always after the change his skin emits a peculiarly acrid odour, a sharp chemical sweat.

‘The ascent of Man,’ he rasps to himself with a grim rictus of a smile. A paramedic approaches.

‘Are you hurt?’ she asks in a brisk but kind voice, the persona of the medic that Bruce has himself adopted in the past.

‘No,’ he replies with effort, hearing her voice as if from very far away. His mouth is dry and his tongue thick. ‘I’m with SHIELD. They’ll be here soon.’ Undeterred, the paramedic kneels by him to peer at his face. He wants to look away, shamed more by the prospect of recognition than by his nudity. She reaches out and unfolds a crackling silver blanket around his shoulders.

‘Let’s wait down by the road,’ she suggests, gently but inexorably pulling him to his feet. ‘By the ambulances.’ She is young, brown-haired and rather stocky, almost his height and so reassuringly solid and ordinary that Bruce feels tears prickling behind his eyes. He _hurts_. At the roadside, the paramedic seats him on the curb and leaves. SHIELD’s cars are not long coming, those sleek black vehicles driven by taciturn, well-briefed drivers. There is a kind of relief for Bruce in slipping into the spacious back seat, pulling on the waiting clothes (clean, folded, his size). After the change he likes loose t-shirts and soft sweaters with the labels cut out. Jogging bottoms, no socks or shoes. His skin feels stretched and sunburned. It will for the better part of a day.

During his early tenure with the organization, Bruce had handed a short letter up the chain of command. The letter was attached to the front of a slender, brown manila folder containing a few sheets of paper. These were his self-administered test results and a brief document explaining the effects of his change. In the letter, he had explained his personal formula for the post-change recovery: 1-2-3. Within one day, the headaches from dilating and constricting blood vessels would subside. He would eat double his caloric allowance and assuage his outsized hunger, and the sunburn-like skin sensation would calm down. The mental effects took two days to fully clear, during which time he would feel mentally sluggish and have a somewhat distorted sense of time. By the end of the third day, his emotional state (fragile, mercurial, guilty) would return to normal.

Laying the aftermath out like that in terse, clinical prose helped Bruce feel a sense of control. In his letter he politely requested that, where possible, his pick-up or base camp provide a loose set of clothing, some high-calorie snacks, and at least twenty-four hours of relative privacy. Now clothed in the requested outfit, he sits in the car and mechanically chews an unpleasantly chalky nutrition bar, washing it down with a lurid orange sports drink. Not what he would usually choose, but when the complex sugars hit his bloodstream the nausea and dizziness will fade. The driver will not take him straight to a debrief with the others. Instead, he will silently and efficiently be chauffeured home to rest and recover, his debrief to be scheduled later. (And he will need this debrief, having only the haziest sense of his movements when changed into the Hulk.)

This is no affectation. The odd stillness of the city post-disaster is so lacking in life or spirit that Bruce feels choked with loss and grief. He is in no state to interact with people now. He bundles his hands together in the sleeves of his white sweater, feeling the rawness in his fists where the Hulk was bruised. There are no marks on his skin now, only the lingering, ghostly remnant of pain endured. The car journey is long and made longer by the eerie way that time is dilating for him. He watches the world through tinted windows, from miles away, watches the trees arcing back and forth like fans as the evening wind picks up.

After hours? – an hour? – after some time, the car pulls up almost silently outside his home, the engine purring to a smooth stop. When the driver opens Bruce’s door the outside sounds flood back in and he steadies himself with one hand on the car roof as the richness of sensation washes over him. At his door, the driver unlocks the house and stands discreetly to his right.

‘Will there be anything else, Doctor?’ he murmurs.

‘Thank you, no,’ says Bruce, feeling the syllables float out, slow and meaningless. He is underwater. He is dreaming. He closes the door behind him. He is home.

Here is his ritual after a change, when he is safe and alone. He walks to the kitchen and eats cold leftovers from a box in the fridge, a substantial meal accompanied by a bottled protein shake. Then, anchored to reality by a full stomach, he showers in just-warm water. His soap is an astringent, minty bar and he uses it in his hair, too. The warm water helps his nerves readjust and the hot, tight feeling starts to fade. He runs his hands over each part of his body, checking for injuries that may have changed back with him; broken fingers and toes are an occasional hazard. He reaches down to his feet, letting his arms and head dangle and his spine lengthen. Just like this, with his eyes closed, he allows the tiredness and the rawness and the terrible, guilty weight or the killing to push tears out from under his eyelids. He stays under the water for a while.

It has been an hour since he came home. Bruce presses the blinking red light on his landline phone and sits in the adjacent chair, cupping his blunt-fingered hands around a gently-steaming cup of pale green tea.

‘Banner? Fury. I’m told you’re home. You did good work today. Rest up and report in on Thursday.’

‘Bruce, its Tony. Hiya, big fella! I miss you already. It’s killing me. No, really. Okay, I’m an ass. Come see me at the Tower soon, we’ll play with computers.’

Then two voices, talking in overlap. ‘We were glad to have you out there with us today, Doctor. Doc! Hope you’re doing alright. Sorry about that near miss with the arrow. Wind speed.’

Natasha’s voice, quiet and kind and filled with all the understanding of her long years with her own demons. ‘Dear thing, take care of yourself. Let’s see the new Zvyagintsev at the weekend. Ciao.’

He listens to the messages three times, taking little, ritualistic sips of his tea with each new speaker. The delicate flavour of the tea, the mint soap, the voices of his friends who _know_ but only ever _say_ when he needs them to – all these things are like balm and he soaks them up like a desert under rain. Bruce sets down his empty tea cup and walks to the window, a chair cushion in one hand. The house is very quiet. The sunset is painting red and gold along the horizon and lights stud the city. With night rolling in, the ugliness of the day is obscured. He sits on the cushion, pulls one foot onto the opposite thigh in a loose half-lotus and closes his eyes. It is day one and he slips into the calming _sithali_ breath, softly calling his battered soul home, home into his bruised, human body.


End file.
